Sen. Barack Obama announced today he is filing papers to set up a presidential exploratory committee and will make a decision by Feb. 10 whether to seek the Democratic nomination for a White House run. Mr. Obama, Illinois Democrat, opted for a Web video to declare his intentions, alerting supporters and members of his political mailing list in an e-mail titled "My plans for 2008." "For the next several weeks, I am going to talk with people from around the country, listening and learning more about the challenges we face as a nation, the opportunities that lie before us, and the role that a presidential campaign might play in bringing our country together," said Mr. Obama, a former state senator elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004. He is expected to visit Iowa, which hosts the nation's first caucus in January 2008, this weekend.... http://www.washingtontimes.com

Police in northern Spain today began questioning the entire population of a tiny mountain village after the mayor was shot dead in an ambush on a country road. All 37 inhabitants of Fago, in the Pyrenees near France, are suspects in a crime which police believe involved several of the many villagers who had argued with the mayor, Miguel Grima. Mr Grima was shot on Friday evening after rocks were thrown across a road leading into the village, forcing him to stop or slow his car. His body, peppered with shotgun wounds, was discovered in a gully beside the road the following day while his battered Mercedes car was found abandoned down a forest track some eight miles (12km) away. Police believe several people, possibly local huntsmen who Mr Grima had been fighting through the local courts, took part in the murder...http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,,1991738,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12

An explosion outside a Baghdad university as students were heading home for the day killed at least 65 people on Tuesday, in the deadliest of several attacks on predominantly Shiite areas. The attacks came ahead of an imminent security operation by the Iraqi government and U.S. forces to secure the capital. And the United Nations said Tuesday that more than 34,000 Iraqi civilians died last year in sectarian violence. On Tuesday alone, at least 109 people were killed or found dead across Iraq — the bloodiest day for such attacks in weeks. In a decision linked to the security crackdown, cabinet ministers and legislators loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr were instructed to end their six-week boycott of the political process, a parliamentarian in the political bloc said Tuesday....http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16649074/

The United Nations said today that more than 34,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in sectarian violence last year, nearly three times the number reported dead by the Iraqi government. Underscoring the peril faced by Iraqis, Baghdad was struck by two bombings apparently targeting Shi'ite neighborhoods. One near a university as students were leaving classes for the day killed at least 65, and another at a used-motorcycle marketplace killed at least 15. The first bomb was attached to a motorcycle in the market. As the curious gathered to look at the aftermath, a suicide car bomber drove into the crowd and blew up his vehicle. The attack appeared to target the mainly Shi'ite neighborhood near the market but also was near the Sheik al-Gailani shrine, one of the holiest Sunni locations in the capital. In the second attack, two minivans exploded near Al-Mustansiriya University as the students were boarding the vehicles to go home...http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20070116-125036-6074r.htm

A new era in aviation security began this morning when hundreds of select travelers at Orlando International Airport were screened by machines designed to let passengers keep their shoes on through airport checkpoints. But the machines didn't always work as travelers expected. Many people who spent a minute or so standing on a brand-new ShoeScanner before getting to a checkpoint had to remove their shoes anyway and put them through checkpoint X-rays because the ShoeScanner found metal in their footwear. ShoeScanners, which are planned for four other airports in coming weeks, can detect only explosives. "It's a waste of time," Tracey Grenkoski of Orlando said after spending more than a minute on a ShoeScanner only to be told she had to remove her high-heeled shoes at the checkpoint. "What's the point of me standing there if I still have to take my shoes off?" Grenkoski had plenty of company. Of 50 travelers who used the ShoeScanner in a one-hour period this morning in Orlando, 28 ...http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2007-01-16-shoe-scanner_x.htm?csp=34

Winter had most of the United States in its grip on Tuesday, with 500,000 homes and businesses still lacking electricity in the Midwest and Northeast, while the Northwest experienced another blast of snow and California reported that nearly its entire citrus crop was wiped out by a freeze. In the Northeast, power lines were down, highways were treacherous and spring-like temperatures were only a memory in the wake of the storm that earlier had plastered the Midwest and Plains with a heavy shell of ice. The death toll from the storm was at least 42 in seven states. The weight of the ice snapped tree limbs, shorted out transformers and made power lines sag, knocking out current to about 145,000 customers in New York state and New Hampshire on Monday, though many got power restored during the night. Scores of schools canceled classes or opened late Tuesday in New Hampshire and upstate New York. And in Texas, ...http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16634187/